A newborn baby was found in a designated baby drop-off box in Indiana on Thursday.
The healthy, hours-old girl had been left in the Safe Haven Baby Box at the fire department in Seymour, Ind., local ABC affiliate WRTV reported. An alarm sounded, alerting firefighters, and an ambulance arrived quickly to take the child to the hospital.
The box in Seymour is one of 25 Safe Haven Baby Boxes, 21 of which are in Indiana, according to WRTV. The idea behind Safe Haven is to allow new mothers to surrender their children in a way that assures the newborns will be safe.
A baby was left in a plastic bag on the side of the road in Seymour in October 2019. That incident prompted Seymour police to remind residents about the local fire department’s baby box.
The box was paid for by Hunter Wart, 19, who was a junior at Columbus North High School when he started working to save $10,000 to pay for the box as his senior project, CNN reported. Wart worked mowing lawns and selling scrap metal to earn the cash. The box was installed in June 2019.
Thursday was its first use, and everything went according to plan, WRTV reported. Once the child leaves the hospital, she’ll be placed in the custody of state child service workers.
Prior to the introduction of Safe Haven boxes in 2016, two to three abandoned babies died in Indiana each year, Safe Haven founder Monica Kelsey told CNN. Since then, zero discarded children have died.
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